Saints and Cooking

I love my mother -- not only does she live with us (which is a blessing in itself) but every so often she buys me little treats that just make my day. WELL, for Easter this year in lieu of chocolate, she did one better (and even gave it to me early). She got me a copy of the book I've been drooling over since I first saw it a couple of years back: Cooking with the Saints by Ernst Schuegraf.

This is an absolutely perfect gift for me! Schuegraf includes write-ups of saints that have fascinating facts (some "cocktail tidbits" that you can throw out at your next Catholic dinner club meeting) about each of the saints -- some 73 in number! A gorgeous picture accompanies each of these saints. But the really great thing (after all, we do have lots of Saint biographies around this house) is that there are authentic recipes for each of these saints -- ethnic specialties for the feast days as well as classic dishes that have been linked to the saint for some reason. There are main dishes, desserts, breads and other goodies scattered throughout the hard-cover volume.

Last night, for St. Joseph's Day, we made two of the dishes -- Pasta di San Guiseppe (pasta with sugared nuts and olive oil) and Pane di San Guiseppe which made the best bread (and tons of it!) based on a recipe from Sicily. What a feast!

This book is THE book for living the liturgical year! I'm so thankful that mom got it for me. A Continual Feast by Evelyn Vitz is a close second (but I already own that one!) for living the liturgical year ...

Ain't it great to be Catholic?